Chapter 124: Hui Helps Ran Ran Build A Bird’s Nest!
After boiling the sausage, Su Ran boiled two large basins of fish balls, then began mixing dough for dumplings.
Cover the kneaded dough with a basin and let it rest for a few minutes.
Taking this time, Su Ran went to find a wooden stick about two fingers thick and relatively straight.
After peeling the bark off the wooden stick and grinding off the burrs on it, she cleaned it thoroughly and brought it back to use as a rolling pin.
As a northerner, rolling out dumpling wrappers and wrapping dumplings was no challenge for Su Ran.
But the premise was that there were no troublemakers around her.
Unfortunately, not only did Su Ran have them around, but there were three of them!
She looked at the winnowing basket in front of her, at the one-third that had been poked into a mess—fillings bursting through wrappers, wrappers exposing fillings—”dumplings,” and felt speechless.
It wasn’t that she wanted to discourage these beastmen’s enthusiasm, but their sharp nails really weren’t suited for this delicate work, so they shouldn’t do it anymore!
The way the three beastmen were kneading the dough now was just like children playing with dough, making Su Ran want to grab some mud and exchange it with them!
But to her surprise, after more than a dozen failures, Gray actually managed to wrap a decent dumpling in the end.
Though this dumpling’s shape was a bit round and flat, at least it didn’t leak!
Su Ran looked at that misshapen dumpling and felt a little pleased inside!
It was also because of the inconvenient nails, but her beastmen had managed it—how could she not feel proud!
Though the process in the middle was a bit chaotic, the dumplings were still wrapped quickly.
After the dumplings were also done, Su Ran quickly stir-fried the two dwarf deer they had caught to cook them.
Then using the fresh blue worms brought back today, she made a cold-dressed fish ball blue worm dish, and today’s dinner was all ready!
After all the dinner was served, the sky had already darkened.
Gray had already lit firewood in the fire pit, the firelight flickering and shining on the dining table, creating a warm and wonderful atmosphere.
Su Ran first tasted a boiled dumpling.
She had no soy sauce, so she only used vinegar fruit and chili fruit to make a sour-spicy dipping sauce. She lightly dipped the boiled dumpling in a bit of the sour-spicy sauce, then gently bit into the dumpling.
As soon as her teeth bit down, there was a “sizzle,” and a mouthful of pale soup juice sprayed out from inside the dumpling!
In the next instant, the fresh and sweet soup juice filled her mouth.
This was a flavor even richer and sweeter than fish soup!
Especially when dipped in the sour vinegar fruit juice, Su Ran felt that the aftertaste in her mouth was even more pronounced!
Su Ran’s eyes lit up, and she popped the remaining half of the dumpling into her mouth.
When she looked up at the three beastmen beside her, Gray was fine; under Su Ran’s guidance, it was already used to eating food with chopsticks.
But Xiao Ju and A Jin, who still couldn’t use chopsticks, had impatiently thrown away the two chopsticks in their hands and were holding their bowls directly, pouring the dumplings into their mouths!
When Su Ran served these dumplings, each of the three beastmen got a large bowl, with about forty dumplings per bowl.
While Su Ran’s slightly smaller bowl had about twenty.
Forty dumplings definitely wouldn’t fill the beastmen’s bellies.
Gray and A Jin ate faster; after finishing the dumplings, one went for the roasted four-eared ox, the other for that large basin of fish balls.
While Xiao Ju, after finishing the dumplings, first tried Su Ran’s newly introduced dish “stir-fried dwarf deer meat.”
Dwarf deer meat was very tender, even more tender in texture than white-headed sheep meat.
But while tender, it also had a bit more fibrous texture than white-headed sheep meat.
When stir-frying, Su Ran added some finger onion and Sweet Leaf Vein Tree Leaves.
Because Xiao Ju and A Jin couldn’t eat spicy, she simply didn’t add chili fruit.
But even so, this stir-fried dwarf deer meat was still very delicious.
That charred aroma from being pan-fried in oil and smoked by firewood smoke was completely different from the taste of roast meat or fried meat.
Su Ran gnawed on the dwarf deer meat while thinking that if only there was some beer, she could slowly gnaw through this half basin by herself!
“Meow woo~~”
Su Ran was lowering her head seriously gnawing on deer meat when she suddenly heard a soft meow from Xiao Ju opposite her.
She looked up and saw A Jin taking a bitten sausage away from Xiao Ju.
And Xiao Ju still had a half-gnawed piece of dwarf deer meat in her hand.
At this moment, her cheeks were puffed out from being stuffed full of food, and with her chewing motions, a sheen of oil was visible on the side of her cheek.
Noticing Su Ran’s gaze, her eyes brightened as she looked over, and upon meeting Su Ran’s eyes, she smiled so her eyes curved, meowing at Su Ran again: “Mee woo~ Ran Ran~”
Su Ran: Seems full…
……
After dinner, Su Ran packed almost all the remaining fish balls for Xiao Ju and A Jin, and took more than half of the fish sausage; she and Gray only kept one-third.
The two four-eared oxen that Gray and A Jin hunted back, only one was roasted at night, and the other was left untouched.
Now, after Gray and A Jin split it, it was divided one half each.
After all these foods were divided, only the fish by the riverside were left.
These fish added up to at least forty or fifty, and since the fish were relatively large, they looked like even more.
After Xiao Ju and A Jin left, Su Ran wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet; she wanted to finish the chicken coop today so that tomorrow she could directly put those red birds in.
Those red birds could fly very high, but Su Ran figured that as long as she clipped their wings like the hens at home, they probably wouldn’t be able to fly anymore!
So after cleaning up the remaining food, Su Ran dragged the willow branches placed behind the house in the afternoon and that half-woven straw mat to beside the rain shelter, sat on the rain shelter, and continued weaving the straw mat.
Meanwhile, Gray was arranged by her to go to the riverside in front to clean the guts and fish scales from those fish, to make it convenient to marinate the fish later.
Gray’s actions were quick; by the time Su Ran finished weaving one and a half straw mats, the more than forty large fish were already cleaned spotless.
After finishing, it walked to Su Ran’s side, hugged Su Ran and rubbed against her, affectionately ao-wu-ing at Su Ran, then said: “Ran Ran, fish cleaned. Shall we sleep?”
Su Ran rubbed her fingers, pushed away Gray who was pressing his body tightly against hers, but as she pushed, she smoothly kissed its face:
“The fish need to be marinated with salt powder, or they’ll spoil. I need to make bird’s nests for the red birds. We raise red birds, red birds lay eggs, Gray and Ran Ran get to eat eggs!”
“Bird’s nest?”
Upon hearing Su Ran mention this term, Gray’s ears on top of its head instantly perked up.
It looked at Su Ran, expression excited: “Gray help Ran Ran make bird’s nest!”
